A news item that emerged a few days ago seemed to encapsulate the increasing helplessness that has gripped America as gun violence reaches new heights.

An Oklahoma company reported that sales of its new product, bullet-proof blankets to protect school children during mass shootings, have far exceeded our wildest expectations. Some school officials have determined that the best response to the potential threat of a deranged gunman is to spend $1,000 each on Bodyguard Blankets.

Under normal circumstances, the nation would be engaged in a soul-searching debate about guns, based on the most recent shooting incident.

Which shooting? Santa Barbara? Las Vegas? Troutdale, Oregon? Or all of the above?

Welcome to the new normal.

We have reached a point, with mass shootings occurring nearly on a weekly basis, where our basic freedoms as Americans have collided. The Second Amendment right to bear arms, as rigorously observed, is pushing aside the simple liberty of public safety in everyday life. At the same time, we have lost our collective ability to express outrage when yet another Columbine-style story hits the news.

Were sliding into a national realm in which the unhinged in our society, mostly young males, believe a nagging emotional problem  even if its something as common as girls not liking you  can be solved by pulling a trigger.

A report released last week found that 74 school shootings (including those involving personal issues related to faculty) have occurred nationwide since the Newtown massacre of 18 months ago. President Obamas response? We should be ashamed. The response in Congress? Not much.

So, I have a few questions:

If a parent feels a twinge of fear every day that they send their teenager to school or a family is on edge when going to a shopping center, how does that square with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

When our nation experiences more than 200 shootings per day, have we put far too much weight on gun rights to the detriment of simply having the ability to go to the theater or take a walk on a sunny day?

With our violent culture -- as demonstrated by movies, video games, misogynistic music, a massive prison population and our epidemic of sexual assaults on campuses and in the military -- does the 21st Century United States really deserve an all-encompassing Second Amendment?

With all the anger and anxiety and psychosis simmering in American society, does it make sense that we allow the unfettered purchase of war-style rifles, ammunition drums that fire 100 shots, ultra-deadly hollow-point bullets, and semi-automatic pistols that are more powerful than the guns carried by some police officers?

Certainly, all of our constitutional rights have limits. The 4th Amendment grants me the right to privacy, but it does not prevent the police from obtaining a search warrant for my house. The 1st Amendment gives me the right to free speech, but it does not allow me to slander someone.

Does the Second Amendment, as written for the 18th Century lifestyle, give me the right to carry a modern weapon of war  a semi-automatic, assault-style rifle, slung over my shoulder -- into a restaurant where young children are eating with Mom and Dad?

How can we take pride in a nation where our elected officials wont close the vast loophole in the background checks system, preventing criminals and those prone to violence from purchasing weapons, or address a woeful mental health system which allows the emotionally disturbed to purchase high-powered firearms?

Mental health professionals warn that far too many severely mentally ill men and boys across America do not receive treatment, particularly emergency treatment when an emotional crisis hits. These are unstable individuals suffering from psychosis  paranoid, ostracized, often isolated, hearing voices and overwhelmed by angry impulses  who resort to violence to assert their distorted sense of power over their powerlessness, one psychologist said recently.

Yet, the gun rights groups reneged on their post-Newtown pledge to work with the political establishment to craft legislation making mental health care more accessible and keeping guns out of the hands of these human powder-kegs.

In Colorado, state legislation was introduced earlier this year to establish clear limits on gun rights for the mentally disturbed, and the NRA pounced, blocking the measure. A Colorado-based gun advocacy group outflanked the NRA on the right and defeated a second, watered-down version of the bill.

These state-based gun groups are driving the Second Amendment debate in an ominous direction. The antics of Texas group that recently showed up in restaurants with AR-15-type weapons, a dramatic effort to demonstrate that open carry has no limits, drew sharp criticism from the NRA as dubious, scary and downright weird.

But the return fire was so furious, with Open Carry Texas claiming the NRA has become too liberal, that the NRA quickly removed the commentary from its website and blamed it on a single, wayward employee.

These fanatics who dream of their Clint Eastwood moment will never draw the line. They believe that their Second Amendment freedoms are boundless, not just for those with sound minds and adult dispositions.

So, one last question: When did our nation become so weak, collectively and politically, that we allowed the gun nuts to put their agenda ahead of our rights?

These shootings didn’t start in the 1970s. The 1920s were an incredibly violent time that include the single largest mass killing of children in the Bath Michigan School bombing in 1927 when Andrew Keyhoe killed some 47 people mostly children.

Despite the liberal narrative, America is among the most peaceful nations on the planet.

10
posted on 06/14/2014 12:56:38 PM PDT
by cripplecreek
(Remember the River Raisin.)

When I was a child going to school every family I knew had guns in the home. Rifles, shotguns and pistols. In the 12 years I attended school there was not one single shooting at ANY SCHOOL in my entire STATE!
Now if this is a gun issue can you explain why that was that no one killed anyone in a school with a gun for the 12 years?
Honestly not aware that any school shooting occurred in the US in that time period. Plenty of guns, plenty of schools. HUM....... Maybe it is not the guns. Maybe it is something else.

11
posted on 06/14/2014 12:56:42 PM PDT
by SECURE AMERICA
(I am an American Not a Republican or a Democrat.)

Under normal circumstances, the nation would be engaged in a soul-searching debate about guns, based on the most recent shooting incident.

Why?
Why not a debate about the lack of mental health facilities?
Or the glorification of violence by Hollywood?
Or the effect of violent video games on children?
Or the removal of God from our schools decades ago?
Or the ever increasing liberalization of our Government and its every is okay just tolerate it attitude?

15
posted on 06/14/2014 1:00:21 PM PDT
by SECURE AMERICA
(I am an American Not a Republican or a Democrat.)

Actually with every terrorist organization on the planet making direct threats against the citizens of this country, what I DESERVE is to have my full rights restored by this criminal government immediately! My rights as defined by our founders ARMS is defined as the standard issue infantry rifle, which is currently being infringed.

A news item that emerged a few days ago seemed to encapsulate the increasing helplessness that has gripped America as gun violence reaches new heights.

The author of this dribble has got it wrong in the first sentence.

Gun violence is not reaching new heights. In general, it's been declining for 20 years (dramatically) along with most other categories of crime. There has been a recent uptick in urban areas, but overall the crime rate and gun violence is way, way down.

What is way up is the media coverage of gun violence and ensuring copycat crime by giving the shooters exactly what they want - LOTS of media coverage.

There is a reason sports leagues and the media who cover them generally don't show streakers. They know it only encourages more.

Rosie O'Donuts,Shania Twain,Bob Costas and Carl Rowan (youngsters,you'll need to google him) are known to have conflicting attitudes on the Second Amendment and ten bucks says that the author of this editorial does as well.

My attitude on this general subject is...the more that politicians and other government officials *don't* want me to have firearms the *more* I want one.

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